bráð-

Snæfellsnesjökullinn is fast vanishing, melting up into a tiny cap of snow atop the volcano. Of course Iceland's paper of record has a trenchant comment on the matter. Morgunblaðið notes that if the ice recedes, we can only assume that the entrance leading to the center of the earth (as per Jules Verne's description) will soon come into view. Trust even the Icelanders of our day to quip so while staring ineluctable fate in the eye.

It's Hekla, not Snæfell, that was always said to be the entrance to Hell. The ancient geographers tell us so. Maybe Verne was closer to the truth. The gate will open and the world will end -- if not in flames then in deceptively ljúfur sultry heat.

Then perhaps the conveyor belt theory will turn out to be correct, the Gulf Stream will stop, and the prophesied fimbulvetr will finally come and everything will freeze. The giants will march from the north with vengeance in mind: Jökull is a jötunsheiti as well as a common glacier. Hekla is a witch. Vatnajökull is the father of churning, silt-choked rivers, monstrous daughters who in their youth threw mountains of ice down on the floodplain. In the cold they will make glittering fists and punch through the highland dams. Afterwards they will lay their heads back in their father's lap and kick their feet in the sea.